As expected, area may lose a seat

AUSTIN - They said this would happen.

Census figures released Thursday showed the state's population increased by 20 percent but decreased in most of West Texas from 2000 to 2010. Lawmakers from the Panhandle and South Plains long have braced for what the shift almost certainly means: the loss of at least one state House seat and possibly one in Congress.

"With those numbers you are going to lose a seat," said state Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo, a veteran of three redistricting fights. "We just don't have the population to keep the representation we've had all these years."

The flood of census data triggers a legislative ritual, the redrawing of political districts. The aim is to ensure that areas where the population has grown get representation to match. Places that lose population are prone to seeing representation decrease.

Late this afternoon the Legislative Council, the research arm of the state Legislature, is expected to post maps showing the most likely redistricting scenarios. Nothing is official until the lawmakers - or perhaps the courts - draw the maps.

Already, political power players are scrambling to adjust to the new reality those maps will bring. Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, is seeking a seat on the Railroad Commission partly because he wants to avoid facing a fellow House Republican in a primary next year, he has said.

Since the population for each Texas House district will be at least 168,000 in the next 10 years, the most the region can hope for is five districts, one less than the current total - three in the Panhandle and three in the South Plains.

Texas will gain four congressional districts, each with a population of more than 700,000. Districts currently represented by Republican U.S. Reps. Mac Thornberry of Clarendon and Randy Neugebauer of Lubbock will have to expand significantly if they are to remain anchored in the Panhandle and South Plains, respectively.

Thornberry's District 13 already goes as far south as Jones County in the Abilene area and as far east as Wichita County. Neugebauer's District 19 stretches as far south and east as Eastland County, about 60 miles east of Abilene.

"I predict that one our congressional districts could go east of I-35 and possibly to the (Rio Grande) Valley," said former Rep. Delwin Jones, R-Lubbock, who chaired the House Redistricting Committee on four different occasions. "I think we're going to hurt in political representation because we just don't have the population numbers."

As a result, four House freshmen from the Panhandle and South Plains region could be paired against one another or other veteran House Republicans in next year's primary.